Hot, Hot, Hot!

This week has been fairly quite on the activities front. Work has been keeping me busy and I'll admit to the fact that when I haven't been working, I've been trying to sleep.

Monday's run felt like a lot of hard work after Sunday's 16 miles. My legs felt very heavy and it was a bit of a slog to get myself around the course. Add to the fact that we started having a record heat wave here in Vancouver on Monday, it made for tough going.

After having moved away from Houston I had expected to enjoy having temperatures that didn't melt the bottom of my trainers, but within a month of being here I'm hearing new stories with titles like 'Once in a lifetime heatwave' and 'Record highs'. In some areas of the city the record was smashed by 4 to 5 degrees Celsius. We have had highs of 34, 36, 35 and 37 this week, which is normal for Texas but then I don't try and run out side in Texas and the buildings all have A/C.

To continue my moaning about the heat, I have continued going to the running club, Pacific Road Runners (PRR), this week. On Tuesday we did a group warm up (ha ha) of a couple of miles before heading out in our separate groups for a run. After the warm up I was sweating more than I normally would after a 10 mile run, but still not wanting to look weak in the eyes of my new running mates I headed out after the pack. Now some of these guys are fast and I'm talking, 'oh bugger where did they go?' fast, but after some phrases like 'we are going to take it easy' and 'phew it is hot, we won;t be pushing it today' I felt a little reassured that it would be OK. Wrong, OMG, WTF!

The route was great, we ran along the coast line and through a couple of beaches, which due to the weather were packed, and they were sine great views of downtown Vancouver. That was the good, the bad was my heart rate hitting nearly 95% of max within the first few K trying to keep up with the pack, the ugly was how I looked when we got to the half way turn around point. Before we got to Jericho Beach which was our half way point I did actually cave and ask the dreaded question, 'are we there yet?' quickly followed by 'how much further?'.

When we finally got there and we stopped for water I had little choice but to half stand under the beach shower to try and get my core temperature down to below critical levels. This behaviour drew some very odd and worried looks from the other runners but at this point social niceties and pride be damned, my brain was melting!

Having got my heart rate below that of a meth-amphetamine junkie on a week long bender, we headed back to base with more than a few concerned backward glances in my direction. The run back actually was not to bad as there was a gentle decline and the heat had finally had an affect on a couple of the other so I could disguise my weakness as the desire to chat and get to know people better. And as for the cold shower after we had finished, all I can say was I apologise to the guy next to me in the showers as I was make some very odd sounds and I think I may have freaked him out slightly.

Thankfully a few of the group decided on a beer or two afterwards which at $3 dollars a pint went down very nicely indeed, probably didn't help with my severe case of dehydration but hey, what you gonna do?

Wednesday night saw the third night of the Celebration of Light and it was the UK's turn to shine. Now I'm trying not to be biased but frankly we kicked arse. I don;t know if it was the stirring national anthem or the choice of the soundtrack including some classical greats but I have to say I was proud to be British that night. I have included a link to a video of the show on the right hand side of this page. Also because of the weather we are having and after the rain on Saturday's show, it seemed all of Vancouver had turned out, the beaches were heaving. Not being able to find anywhere to sit by the time I got there, I had wait standing up for an hour before the start and due to some poor wardrobe decisions I was soaked with sweat with in a few minutes, suddenly the kids in swim wear were not looking too stupid.

Partly due to the heat and mostly due to still feeling the affects of Tuesdays effort I decided to put of Wednesday's run but Thursday I was back at the club. Thankfully this time I made the decision to 'get to know' some of the other runners so I took it at a much more leisurely pace.

Hopefully the next few days will see the back of this hot front and things can get back to normal, things like being able to sleep or sit in one place with out leaving a David shape sweat mark.

I hope to have a few things happening this weekend so will report back in soon.